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I am a girl who loves mountains, changing seasons, running, true backpacking, strong coffee, and knitting with high quality yarn.

When something bad happens, you have three choices: let it define you, let it destroy you, or let it strengthen you.

The purpose of life is to discover and develop your gift. The meaning of life comes from sharing your gift with others. - David Viscott

Thursday, April 17, 2008

News etc.

Gosh, when did life become so busy, I stopped responding to emails? This is something I NEVER do! Sorry, folks. I had a friend following me around for a couple of days and the verdict was: when do you sit down for more than 2 minutes at a time? Anyhow, I'll shoot the short and skinny of the news, and you'd just have to trust me - I wish I could elaborate more (I will even forgo the links for the most part).

Scott Mason had put up an amazing new team (and I am so behind with this announcement) for ultrarunning - Wasatch Speed Goat Mountain Racing Team. I got an invitation - Wahoo! I say this is like so exciting (no, I did not leave NUUN Team, besides, NUUN is co-sponsoring WSGMT), as this is a team for regular folks, mid-pack (ok, there are some at the front, some aspire to be at the front and some used to be there, but while I admire super-elite type who are simply unreal above human, I am kind of scared to be next to them:)). The important part - we get to be who we are! The exciting engaging communicating eyes-popped-hooray trail mountain ultra junkies! If you check out the link, as well as team-mate's blogs, there is more info there on what we do and who sponsors us. BTW, here is the crazy part - been sponsored for 5 (all) years of my ultrarunning times by various companies (some small, some bigger and better known) I don't think I had ever seen 2 things: so many various sponsors stepping up and not forbidding other companies to join in (and whatever is listed on Scott’s and other’s blogs is more than doubled by now) AND so much communication going on amongst the team members. Talking about been short on time to respond! But the camaraderie is amazing! Look out for us at the races and say hi, we are YOU!

The challenge I asked you to help with is on. Salomon shoes and Nokia phones contacted a few runners (have no idea who and how many) with this whole thing (please, dig out archives if interested). So with your great help (thanks, Meghan!) I picked the 3 mile trial time. I won't do it around the track (are you kidding? I hardly make it through mile repeats!), but did study maps of Forest Park and Leif Erickson dirt Rd, found an honest stretch that is rolling some but resembles the flattish path, and after about hour warm up (and inside 18M run) will do it this Saturday. The goal? Well, the first one is a trial, so don't know. Really, last time I ran 5k was in 2004, a week after WS100. I'll have to post it here, so ya'll know how really slow I am and not sandbagging these days. Any ballpark prediction? How about happy with 25min? The future goal? Take off 1 min in 2 months.

In a meantime, since goals are fun, I figured I'd pick a couple more. How about Bushwhacker's idea of holding 6x400m under 99 sec (I can do 2 in a row now) and running 700M total in 2 months? The countdown started past Monday.

Healthy food is good. I've been entertaining myself with new choices, which (major point) should not take more than 20 min to cook. Here is another version:

So, yes, I dropped 8 lbs and a pant's size. Kind of fun, although I am not too focused on the number and not pushing too hard, just playing around. It all might come back any day now:)

Stephen brought the grades report - best yet! I am so proud of him, probably because I am so afraid my crazy spinning life, his crazy spinning life and new conditions/situation makes me feel guilty (no, not really, more like cautious of blames). Yay for Stephen! His first track meet is this Thursday (p.s. he placed 1st in hurdles and 4th in relay team run); his next boxing tournament is May 3rd.

I visited Monika's class for Pilates Reformer. I had been doing her Pilates classes for about 2 months or more, and really saw how it works small stabilizing muscles versus big chunks, and liked it. This week it was my chance to try the machine. Yikes! Not that it was hard physically (she put me on level 4/5, nothing I couldn't handle), but it's a "brain gym"! One leg here, another there, but the arms yet elsewhere, inhale now, exhale differently and hell knows when...fun.

Somebody asked me how I put so many miles a week. Doubles. As in 2 runs a day 3 times a week. The longest I can do at a pop is 10M due to time issues. Wish I can be on trails more as well, but during a week it is only twice. However, after my outing last week to the Gorge I made a decision to have a pilgrimage there every Thursday with Gail and Mike (who else would agree on 6am start?). So below is a little photo-assay.OK, I am sure I forgot half the things I planned to mention, don't hold it against me. I gotta go work:)

19 comments:

Anonymous
said...

olga , i wish there were more people like yourself out here where i live. you all seem to have so much fun getting together and just running, for the fun of it!congrats on the running team! is it invite only?michael e.

Olga, congrats on all the achievements! Now, Sean and I just need you to move to Bend and work in the store! We need another female....!Hey, is there any more camping spots available for Hood and, if so, how do I get one???Hope all is well.Rod B.

Congrats on all of these good bits of news, Olga. I'm looking foward to reading about your challenge and it's progressions. If I did a time trial, I would probably pick a route rather than the track, so good idea.

Hey Olga,That's great news about the running team. Anything with "speed goat" in it has got to be cool. And that food looks so good. Congrats on the weight loss! I bet you feel awesome. And congrats to Stephen, who obviously takes after his mother in intellect and speed (come on now, Olga, you can do a 5k in less than 25 min!). :)

Yes congrats on the new team. Way to go. Scott just e-mailed me this past weekend to check up on me on my facebook. Hes a great guy and another one of those mountain folk I'd like to meet some day. Keep it fresh girl.

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